Scholz & Friends: The Female Company’s The Tampon Book

In Germany, female sanitary products are classified as ‘luxury goods’ and taxed at 19%. This is 12% more than the tax applied to caviar, truffles and even oil paintings.

To circumvent Germany’s 19% luxury tax on feminine hygiene products, The Female Company, an online store selling female healthcare products designed by women for women, worked with Berlin-based agency Scholz & Friends to package 15 organic tampons inside a 46-page book, which was taxed at the lower 7% rate for daily necessities.

In addition to the tampons, the book includes stories and illustrations about menstruation. The first printing of The Tampon Book sold out in a day, the second in a week.

The campaign managed to grab the attention of German lawmakers, with many female politicians sharing the book with their followers. A petition on Change.org to reduce the tax rate to 7% currently has more than 175,000 signatures, and according to The Female Company, the German Committee on Legal Affairs “must officially debate the tampon tax.”